Very impressive.
So it is safe to assume that your previous airline was also flying Airbuses, or are you comparing apples-to-oranges?
No, the one I just came from was flying EMB-175. I was furloughed from the other Airbus operator.
I really have to ask all of the naysayers out there what the propose pilots do if they should not take a job with a company like Virgin America.
Should furloughed pilots continue to collect unemployment and live off the government?
Should they get on with a regional and take a pay cut from unemployment? Don't laugh, after nearly a year on unemployment after my furlough, and getting rejected from a couple of overseas jobs due to lack of currency, I got hired by an ALPA regional and took a
PAY CUT from my unemployment benefits.
Should regional guys continue to slog it out in slim hope the remaining guys at the majors stop giving up scope and may actually retire at some point?
Should they go back to school, take on more debt, and try and break into a new career field in the midst of a terrible recession and high unemployment?
Should they look overseas...oh wait, after a few months you are not current and they are not interested.
Seriously, what is the FI approved option?
And please do not go down the route of taking the high road for the sake of the greater good. I slogged it out on a BE-1900 for five years, refusing to fly an RJ because I believed (and still do) they are scourge of the industry and are destroying legacy jobs. All that time I watched guys come on board, fly for a few months, and go off to the likes of Republic, Skywest and Expressjet. Now those guys are all making high five figures, and maybe even into six figures, as senior captains at those places. In the mean time I had recruiters for majors telling me that BE-1900 time is just not all that attractive. Sure I know a few 1900 drivers who went to SWA (gasp! they bought their jobs - not acceptable to the FI crowd), some more went to Continental, but most went corporate, Air Tran, or are still flying for the same company.
So tell me, what is the reward for taking the "high ground" when very few others are willing to stand by you? Sure, we have seen pilot groups take the high ground - Spirit (and by most accounts the senior guys again sold out the junior guys) and Comair - but for the most part pilots are a very selfish bunch. And those of us who try to take the high ground get stomped on by the rest in the process. So I make no apologies for doing what is best for me. I am not crossing a picket line, I am not being used as whipsaw fodder, I am not being used to bust scope, or being used as outsourced labor. I took a job at a start-up company. Tell me in the de-regulation era, in a captialist country that was built on free enterprise, why is that a sin?